A Beast Revealed

I had always found her so beautiful, but never more than she appeared now. When we had first begun dating, back in January, she had told me something about herself that drew me to her and made me stay with her ever since. "I'm a killer," she had told me in a whisper, lips parted luxuriously. Her eyes had locked onto mine in mock seriousness and I came to wondering at how someone's eyes could be so black, while her lips were so red and skin so pale. She was a beautiful cliché, with all the charms of fantasy, multiplied by a blood lust I knew few other people could control with such honest delicacy. "A killer of men," she had added as way of explanation. "I eat them up and spit out their bones."

"Do you?" I had asked, completely taken by everything about her, from appearance to rosy scent. Her smile was sharp and enticing as she replied.

"Yes." What confidence! "A proper man-eater. A real heart breaker. A lover and a serial killer."

I had laughed. Her flamboyance and humor, masked by a very solemn gaze, made her a real beauty to behold. And the violence in her--it was compelling in ways I had never thought I would find appealing, let alone discover in a person.

"Well if I am to die," I told her. "I can't imagine a more perfect way than to die at your hand."

It's all rather ironic now.

Lying on the floor, covered in blood, watching her steady gaze, I feel like I should have anticipated this moment.

What a waste that we could not be at peace together, and yet, what a treasure we had discovered in one another. But we had spent too much time dwelling on the question: Where does the mask end and the man begin? She knew the feeling I had described, but in ways I had never imagined. If there was anything I learned from our final scuffle, it was that we both were not what the other expected. At least, I hoped she did not see me as predictable now. I wanted her to understand that I understood. I was not a pawn like the other men she had destroyed. I was more than that.

I was still in love with her. Perhaps more than I had ever been before.

"Oh sweet one," I whispered, taking her pale, red hand in mine. "I had always known you were special. You were honest to me from the very start. You're a real man-eater, and I respect you for it."

She didn't speak. She had been quiet for a while now, unable to tear her black eyes from my body on the floor, not even to look at the blood that soaked her palms.

"Please, little dove, speak again," I begged. At least she had stopped crying. The weakness was terribly unattractive, to say the least. But now, in her silent contemplation, I found her as riveting as I had the moment we met. "I was telling the truth that first night, just as you were. We knew it would come to this from the very start. I knew what I was getting into, and I thought you did too."

She seemed to grow paler at my words, and slowly the scent of blood overtook her rose perfume, but her eyes were as bright as ever as we held each other's gaze. I was starting to feel dim, but she seemed to only grow brighter. In her eyes, I imagined a parade of black swans, sinking slowly into bubbling hot tar as a starless night dawned in the sky. She was a vibrant dream of darkness as dizziness took hold of me. But I had to keep talking. I wanted her to understand my happiness, which she seemed to not comprehend time and time again.

"Remember two weeks ago, when we went to the park?"

"Yes."

She had given me the biggest grin I had ever seen.

"Yes, of course I'll marry you!"

She had leapt into my arms with all the passion of a child and--to be frank--it had appalled me. Over the year that we had dated, her seduction had turned to girlish cheer and slowly my interest had begun to wane. Of all the women I had ever met in my life, however, she had been the only one to show me the beast that I so craved in a partner. So I trusted her. I trusted the real her to return to me. I knew there were none like her, but I wanted to move past this giddy stage of proposal-anticipation, which had plagued me for nearly a month after she dragged me to see that ridiculous new romantic comedy. Maybe if I proposed, I thought, just maybe she would mature again into the woman I had fallen for.

My plan did not seem to be working.

"This is fantastic! Will you finally let me introduce you to my family?"

I had cringed. It was something I had been avoiding for a long time now. Where was my killer love--the one that cared not for those of her blood, but only the things that made her blood boil? Was she really gone? Had I lost her?

Or had that been the mask?

Interesting to think that I may have fallen for a sheep in wolf's clothing rather than a true she-wolf. Surely I was not so shallow. But was she that clever?

"If you like. But let's wait to make that call for another day or two."

She had accepted my requirement without a second thought, and threw her arms around me again. It was an uncomfortable embrace, betwixt her bony arms and the net of her long golden hair, and I wondered if this had been the deciding moment that would cause the next day's battle to be our last.

"Of course, of course. I don't want to rush you." She released me from the hug and gave me a playful wink. It was then, as the sun shone onto her face in brilliant gold, that I realized her eyes were not black, but merely a dark brown. I felt betrayed. What else was not as it seemed? What else was she hiding from me? "Let's to break open the champagne and celebrate." She held out her left hand. "After you put the ring on me, of course, so I can show off to the world that I'm taken." She winked again, but once again the soft eye color put me off.

"Sure, sure, of course." I held her left hand in mine, hers warm and slowly showing a summer's tan, while mine was cooler and of a lighter shade. I slipped the three-diamond gold ring onto her fourth finger and it fit like a glove. At least I had gotten that part right about her.

"Oh," she purred as I let go of her, shoulders slumping in an affectionate sigh. "It's so perfect."

No. It was actually anything but. My she-wolf was replaced with a bleating lamb that seemed to care more and more about the material and less and less about the darkness that had united us.

Little did I know that the next day would bring her back to me.

Fourteen days later, and we were here. Both of us pale and bloodied, one sitting in watch and the other sprawled on the floor and dizzying. Our bodies did not touch, but I had never felt closer to her, cooling on the linoleum beside her. I wished that I could sit beside her, but my energy was slipping away. The daytime was coming to a close.

"I hope we can stay like this forever," I cooed to her. "You're so peaceful, so true."

I reached out and touched her cold dead hand.

"Two weeks and you have only grown more beautiful." I laughed. "I have no interest in eating anymore or sleeping--and why should I when I can spend all of my time talking to you?" I touched the ring on her finger lightly. "You were so happy when you got this. I thought I had lost you. But when your veins ran dry, I found that I could see you again for who you really are. My wolf, my man-eater. Oh, and you ate me up, you really did. But slowly I grew back because you forgot to chew and the bones you spit out--they let me rebuild from bloody foundations. You grew wool and grew tan and everything I loved about you--I thought it was gone. I wanted to marry you to darkness but you saw yourself married to a man. A man! I thought we understood each other's monsters, but clearly we were both so wrong. Until now. Now I have found you again, my darling serial killer, and you have found me to be your living mirror. Who knew your beast only came alive in death, when mine depended on life? Oh don't rot, my sweet. You have finally become pale again and your eyes are so bright. With trust? With tears? I can only hope you are as happy as I in this final state we have chosen. Don't be sad, love, you are no victim. You are art! You are your mask, fully realized. My mirror, my love, my muse, my beast revealed."

I needed to sleep, but the smell of death was so nauseating that I felt sick with myself. I could not leave her now that she had come back to me as I had hoped she would, time and time again. But for our work to be complete, one had to live, and I had correctly guessed that it was me that had to play artist, while she played the painting. In the morning, I would get her perfume and douse her in it accordingly. We would talk of masks and the wedding and the future we had uncovered. I would remind her of the irony of our first meeting and we would have a good laugh. After all, we were both wolves now... and wolves stick together to survive.